VMworld 2013 opens on August 25th, 2013, at the MOs cone Convention Center in San Francisco, California. Cisco is a Global Diamond Sponsor, as we highlight our Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS), Solutions for virtualization and cloud.

Cisco’s unique, fabric-centric architecture-Cisco Unified Computing System (Cisco UCS), combines high performance compute, network and storage access bound together by an integrated control plane with embedded systems management. Cisco UCS serves as a common, centrally managed platform that simultaneously supports the unique requirements of the full spectrum of application workloads and a wide variety of operating models for bare metal, virtualized or cloud environments

The best way to quickly learn about latest Cisco UCS innovations and solutions for virtualization and cloud is by seeing them “LIVE IN ACTION”. Come to the Cisco booth #1005 to leverage the Cisco UCS demos, theater sessions and related activities at VMworld San Francisco, 2013.

Here are some key takeaways from the chat and below is a compiled transcript. I’m interested to hear your insights. Do you agree with these guests’ point of views? How does your organization engage with its employees? Are there other approaches perhaps not covered in today’s chat? Let’s keep the conversation going by sharing additional perspectives.

Key Takeaways

Make sharing content through social media channels as easy as possible for employees.

Create guidelines and policies and provide training to employees, creating a comfortable and safe environment to join the social conversation.

Define different types of opportunities and content-sharing that suits employees’ communication preferences and style.

Leverage executive sponsors to enable employees to participate in the social stream.

Design incentives such as gaming badges, recognitions, and other opportunities to motivate employees to participate more in social media.

September Twitter Chat

And mark your calendars for next month’s Let’s Chat! #Ciscosmt Twitter chat, taking place on Thursday, September 26th from 9-10 a.m. PT. Stay tuned for more details by following the Cisco Digital and Social blog and the #Ciscosmt hashtag!

It’s truly amazing to think about the possibilities that advances in technology have unlocked. No longer do the barriers of time and distance have to limit the ability for anyone to access education, healthcare and government services. We can now connect with the push of a button. And often, it allows us to help the people who need it most.

I recently read an article by Bryant Jordan of Military.com that discusses how the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is changing the lives of veterans across the U.S. and helping meet their unique healthcare needs via telehealth. Veterans are able to meet with primary care physicians and specialists from the comfort of their home, minimizing the pain and hassle of traveling to medical facilities, which are often many miles away. There’s no doubt technology has provided convenience and improved access to healthcare, but the VA has seen other positive results as well. By increasing veterans’ ability to access medical professionals and services, improving follow-up and ongoing services, inpatient bed days have been reduced by 58% and admissions have declined by 38%. Read More »

This is the final post in the Cisco Partner Talent series, helping partners attract, develop, and retain the right people with the right skills at the right time. This month’s blog post goes into detail about the importance of Rewards and Recognition in our Cisco Fit4Talent Employee Lifecycle. To read all of my blogs, see my Cisco blogs bio.

Good job. Well done. Fantastic. We all recognize the power of positive reinforcement but what about recognition preferences? Studies show that how you recognize an employee for their work is as important as recognizing them at all.

Sounds strange, I know. But let me share some data from Maritz Research, a marketing research firm, to get you thinking about your own recognition program. Read More »

A friend was showing off her new tablet, and I was impressed to hear how much ‘bang for her buck’ she’d got – it’s top spec, light as a feather, looks stunning and it didn’t mean re-mortgaging her home!

Then she came clean… it was bought as a refurbished model, direct from the manufacturer. In the next breath she said, “It even looks brand new and fresh out of the box!” as if not buying brand new had to be justified.

All of which got me thinking – why is it there still such stigma attached to buying ‘second-hand’? This is particularly true of electronic products, even when they are just like new and have never been out of the packaging, or are simply ex-display models or surplus stock. It defies logic, especially when you consider the amount of electronic waste the world increasingly generates. Conservative estimates run at 20 million metric tons of waste per year and 85 per cent of computers still end up in landfill.*

At Cisco, we have a positive story to tell about these products and the benefits for partners and their customers across MEAR.

As their official title suggests – Cisco Certified Refurbished Equipment – these items are fully remanufactured to like-new condition (many are even unused), and they come with the same license, warranty and service support options as new products. It’s great value, enabling customers to obtain the technology they need.

The Cisco secondary market represents a massive opportunity (estimated at $1–3 billion) for our partners across MEAR. First, see it as a potential deal-clincher for any customer who has come to expect top performance, reliable service with maximum flexibility. By solving customers’ challenging procurement requirements, and being a source for both new and remarketed products, our partners are finding themselves in a better position to offer additional solutions and capture new business.

In the long term, remarketed products serve to protect customer’s interests. Last but not least, buying used helps customers to meet environmental targets for recycling.

And if these aren’t compelling enough reasons to blend both remarketed and new products in your deals, consider the alternative for your customers who may be tempted to buy from unauthorized sources, from vendors who might be selling products that are untested, minimally tested, or refurbished to varying quality standards with the risk of buying without a warranty or valid software licenses.

Cisco Certified Refurbished Equipment program is open to all authorized partners. It only takes a few moments to sign up here and you can immediately browse through the thousands of products currently available.

Some of the individuals posting to this site, including the moderators, work for Cisco Systems. Opinions expressed here and in any corresponding comments are the personal opinions of the original authors, not of Cisco. The content is provided for informational purposes only and is not meant to be an endorsement or representation by Cisco or any other party. This site is available to the public. No information you consider confidential should be posted to this site. By posting you agree to be solely responsible for the content of all information you contribute, link to, or otherwise upload to the Website and release Cisco from any liability related to your use of the Website. You also grant to Cisco a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free and fully-paid, transferable (including rights to sublicense) right to exercise all copyright, publicity, and moral rights with respect to any original content you provide. The comments are moderated. Comments will appear as soon as they are approved by the moderator.